Marriages borne of regret and mistakes did not make for appropriately happy ever afters.
At her age and station, she knew that her best chance of ever marrying and having a family was to accept a loveless marriage, but agreeing to such with Ralston was simply too much to bear.
She’d longed for him for too long to accept less than love. Collecting herself, she said, “Of course it would not be bad. I’m sure you would make a fine husband. I am simply not in the market for one.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” he scoffed. “Every unmarried female in London is in the market for a husband.” He paused, considering the situation. “Is it me?”
“No.” You’re rather perfect, actually. He was going to push her until she gave him a reason. She gave a little shrug. “I simply don’t believe that we would suit.”
He leveled her with a blank stare. “You don’t think we’d suit.”
“No.” She met his eyes. “I don’t.”
“Why the devil not?”
“Well, I am not exactly your preferred specimen of femininity.”
Ralston paused at her phrasing, looking up to the ceiling as though asking for patience. “Which is?”
Callie gave a frustrated little sigh. Did he have to push her constantly? “You’re really going to make me say it?”
“I really am, Callie. Because, truly, I don’t understand.”
She hated him in that moment. Hated him almost as much as she adored him. She waved her hand in irritation. “Beautiful. Sophisticated. Experienced. I am none of those things. I am the opposite of you and the women with whom you’ve surrounded yourself. I’d much rather read books than go to balls, I loathe society, and I am so lacking in experience in the romance department that I had to come to your house in the dead of night to secure my first kiss. The last thing I want is a marriage with someone who will regret such an arrangement from the moment we speak our vows.” The words came out fast and furious, and she was angry that he’d pressed her into laying bare her insecurities.
She punctuated her diatribe with a muttered, “Thank you very much for forcing me to say it all.”
He blinked at her, silent, taking in her words. And then he said, simply, “I shan’t regret it.”
The words were her undoing. She’d had enough. Enough of his kindness and his passion. Enough of the way he made her mind and her heart and her body feel. Enough of punishing herself with moments alone with him. Enough of the events of the past few weeks somehow convincing her that she might, after all, have a chance with Ralston. “Really? In the same way you didn’t regret your actions in your study? In the same way you don’t regret the events of last evening?” She shook her head, sad. “You’ve been so quick to apologize after each of those moments, Ralston, it’s fairly obvious that a marriage to me is the very last thing you would choose freely.”
“That’s not true.”
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with emotion. “Of course it’s true. And, frankly, I will not put you through a lifetime of regretting your being tied to someone as…plain and missish…as I.” She ignored his slight flinch at her description—the same words that he had used that afternoon in his study. “I couldn’t bear it. So, thank you very much, but I will not marry you.” I have loved you too long. And too much.
“Callie, I should never have said—”
She held up both hands to halt his speech. “Stop. Please.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and she could sense his frustration at her words. And then he spoke.
“This is not over,” he said, his voice firm and unyielding.
She met his unwavering blue gaze, and said, “Yes. It is.”
He spun on his heel and stormed from the room.
She watched him go, listening for the main door of Allendale House to slam closed before she allowed the tears to come.
Twenty
Ralston went straight to Brooks’s, which was a mistake. If it weren’t enough that she’d refused his suit and in the process made him feel like a royal ass, Callie had also ruined his club. Quite thoroughly.
In the span of twelve hours, this place that had been designed specifically for men to find comfort and solace far from the struggles of the outside world had become a mahogany-and-marble reminder of Calpurnia Hartwell. As he stood in the great foyer, awash in the drone of male conversation, all Ralston could think of was her: Callie, dressed in men’s clothing, skulking down the darkened hallways of the club; Callie, peeping through open doorways to soak in the ambiance of her first—and, one would hope, only—men’s club; Callie, grinning at him over their private card table; Callie, naked, the heat of their passion casting a rosy glow over her lovely smooth skin.
Casting a look down the long, shadowed path that he and Callie had taken the previous night, Ralston was struck with a perverse desire to return to the card room where they had spent the evening. For a fleeting moment, he considered ordering a pot of coffee brought to the room, where he could torture himself with memories of the night and all the many ways that he had said and done the wrong thing. He immediately decided against it, however, in the interest of preserving his own sanity.
Truthfully, he was shocked by her negative response to his proposal. After all, it wasn’t every day that an attractive, young, wealthy marquess made an offer of marriage. He imagined that the days were even more rare when those marquesses were refused. How long had he been avoiding matchmaking mamas and desperate debutantes, all vying to secure the position of Marchioness of Ralston? And now, when he’d finally made the position available, the woman to whom he’d offered it had refused him.
If she thought she could simply refuse him and walk away after last night, she was entirely wrong.
Frustrated, he pulled off his greatcoat and tossed it to a footman nearby, but not without recognizing her scent on the fabric—a combination of almonds and lavender and…Callie. The thought brought a scowl to his face, and he admitted a modicum of pleasure at the way the footman scurried out of sight rather than be on the receiving end of Ralston’s foul mood.
The emotion was fleeting, replaced by a new flare of indignation. What the devil is wrong with her?
He couldn’t believe that she had turned him away. Surely she couldn’t honestly believe that they were incompatible. She might have been a virgin, but even she must have sensed that their interaction last night—and all the others, for that matter—was far from typical. Certainly their marriage would not suffer in the bedchamber. And, if the passion between them weren’t enough, there was also their well-matched intelligence, humor, and maturity. Aside from all that, she was quite lovely. Soft in all the right places. Ralston let his thoughts linger…a man could spend years lost in her lush curves.
Yes, Lady Calpurnia Hartwell would make him a fine marchioness.
If only she would realize it for herself.
Ralston raked a hand through his hair. When they married, she’d have title, wealth, lands, and one of the most coveted bachelors in all of England. What the hell else did the woman want?
A love match.
The thought gave him pause. She’d confessed her belief in love matches ages ago, and he’d scoffed at her, showing her that attraction was equally as powerful as the love in which she placed such faith. She couldn’t honestly have refused him because she was holding out for love. He shook his head, frustrated at the very idea that she would risk her reputation and her future with a rejection of his proposal because of some childish fantasy she refused to release.